Author Archives: The Music in My Ears (by Jamie Kyei)

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About The Music in My Ears (by Jamie Kyei)

Just one man who's making his way through life one day at a time writing about the songs he has on his phone. And other things at some points.

#1082: Cloud Nothings – Quieter Today

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Well, I guess from this day onward, things will be a bit quieter around here. It’s the last song of the P (and Q) section. It’s the last Cloud Nothings song that will feature on this whole thing too. They had a good run. The first one I wrote for the band came in 2014 with ‘Fall In’. Had I known the band earlier, ‘Cut You’ would have got its own post too. Bit of a shame though because since they released Here and Nowhere Else all those years ago, there haven’t made another record that hit me the same way as it and Attack on Memory did and still do to this day. I did think they would go on to take the rest of the 2010s by storm. Wasn’t meant to be it seems.

‘Quieter Today’ is the second song on Here and Nowhere Else and keeps things rolling on very swiftly after the album’s mood is somewhat established by its opener, ‘Now Hear In’. Guitarist and vocalist Dylan Baldi described it as ‘almost like a pop song’, and I see where he’s coming from. In terms of the structure, you’ve got the standard procedure of verse, pre-chorus, chorus (x2), bridge and outro. So, in that way, it’s easy to follow like a pop song. Though where it differs greatly is that obviously it’s in a noise-rock context where the drums are thrashing, moving almost ahead of where each beat is supposed to go, and where the guitars are playing chords and hooks at a frenetic pace. My favourite moments aren’t even brought on by the performance here. They arrive in those short pauses that occur in between the pre-choruses and the choruses themselves. All the tension built in the former is released in the latter with this great release; it’s so cathartic every time.

Gotta say I have no idea what the lyrics truly are. Genius appears to have what would be the closest-sounding to what can be heard, but I’m still skeptical about them anyway. Though Baldi also stated that the song is about being comfortable in just observing and keeping quiet when around people who talk just for the sake of talking. This is a sentiment that I am on board with all the way. If I didn’t already like the song, that just added a few bonus points in my eyes. Not that I don’t want people to talk all the time. It’s just fine to have those moments of silence where no one feels like they have to fill it with something to avoid things being “awkward” or whatever. Hats off to Cloud Nothings for this song and addressing this topic.

Annnd that is it for now. My goodness, that was a lot of songs. For a bonus, I’ll throw in ‘QYURRYUS’ by The Voidz. It won’t get a post, but I just want people to know that it’s a bop. It’ll feature on the Spotify playlist too. The series will come back, and I’ll be tackling the R’s. See you then.

#1081: System of a Down – Question!

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Remember when System of a Down released those new songs a few years back? That was definitely an occasion. It was cool to hear some new stuff after so many years of not releasing anything. It definitely sounded like they were starting right from where they left off. Unfortunately though, both Mezmerize and Hypnotize are my least favourite albums by the group. I do prefer the former than the latter by a small margin. I’m a big fan of the usual back and forth and harmonizing dynamic between Serj Tankian and Daron Malakian, a usual feature on SOAD albums. But there was a larger presence of Malakian that I’ve never been to fond of. When it was revealed that Tankian actually wanted to leave the band prior to the album sessions and sort of went through the motions for the recordings, that presence made much more sense. So I do have to hand it to Malakian for holding the reins to get the albums done. Still, just not for me so much.

Over the two albums, there’s only one that’s solely credited to Tankian in terms of the music and lyrics*, and that is today’s subject, ‘Question!’. While everyone else trips over ‘B.Y.O.B.’ as the overriding highlight of Mezmerize, I’m listening to ‘Question!’ with as much attention and focus as I did when I first saw the music video back in 2005. The song’s a very dramatic affair, concerning (I think) a narrator who’s about to commit a double-suicide by eating poison berries with their significant other and questions (want to say this is the basis for the song’s title) what will happen after they consume them. Will they actually die? Cease to exist? Or will their spirits live on in another form? As I said, quite dramatic. And that feeling is only intensified by the impassioned wailing harmonies of Tankian and Malakian during the choruses. Like it alludes to in the music video, there’s almost an operatic/theatrical tone to how they’re belting out these notes.

Not only are the vocals something to marvel at. The track is propelled by changing time signatures and shifting moods. You never know what’s coming around the corner. Starting as the album’s previous song is still fading out, the track comes in with a soft acoustic guitar playing in 9/16. The 5/8 main hard rock riff smacks you in the face once that’s over. Then the choruses come in with a waltz-time. There’s a lot of switching between those sections that happens throughout. How Tankian managed to get a beautiful melody into all of this is beyond me. Some would maybe be so focused on the musicality that any sort of melody you’d want to at least hum to would surpass them. But that’s not how it happens in System of a Down. I think I said in the last System of a Down post that sometimes their unusual delivery can be quite overbearing and a little tiring. Something along those lines. You’d think ‘Question!’ would be a prime example. But I never get tired of it. It’s real good stuff.

*25/02/26 – Daron Malakian also contributes to the music in the song. My fault.

#1080: David Bowie – Queen Bitch

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Aha! Surprise “Q” attack. That’s right, I’m going right into the Q section of the list. Why? Just because there’s only three songs that I have to write about, so it made sense to just get them over and done with before really thinking about how to approach the R’s. Will take a break for that though, I’m sure you understand. So let’s get this short selection underway. David Bowie’s ‘Queen Bitch’ kicks things off, the penultimate track from his 1971 album Hunky Dory and a proper rocker too. Mostly made of three chords apart from the change-ups for the campy choruses. It’s usually a good time guaranteed when this comes on.

Similarly to my experience with fellow album track ‘Oh! You Pretty Things’, I don’t think I really paid attention to ‘Queen Bitch’ until after Bowie died and I watched a performance of he and his Spiders from Mars (or did they go by a different name before the whole Ziggy Stardust thing) playing the track on the Old Grey Whistle Test show from the ’70s on YouTube. I may as well go ahead and embed that at the bottom. Bowie oozes coolness with the blue 12-string acoustic guitar, not much singing as he is talking in rhythm during the verses, Mick Ronson’s killing it on the golden Les Paul on the right and then they come together to share the microphone and harmonise for the choruses. It’s a boss “live” take. Live in quotations because I’m sure the only thing that’s live about it are the vocals and nothing else.

The song is a full-on tribute to the Velvet Underground, and in particular the band’s frontman Lou Reed. Everything from the smooth talking vocals to predominant use of three main chords to the lyrical subject matter, all taken out of Reed’s guide to songwriting. Take a song like Underground’s ‘Rock and Roll’ and you have the template for ‘Queen Bitch’ right there. Very sure Reed appreciated the gesture as he and Bowie would become kinda tight, and the latter would end up producing Reed’s Transformer album in 1972. They also sang the track together for Reed’s big 50th birthday party concert in New York City in 1997. I mean, I may as well embed that too. These are two legends with the crowd in the palms of their hands.

#1079: Unknown Mortal Orchestra – Puzzles

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Well, it’s come to the time again where I have to write about an artist for the last time in this series. So long, Unknown Mortal Orchestra, I hardly knew ye. The tale of how I came about the band can be found in my post for ‘Like Acid Rain’, posted almost three years ago to this day. Three years, you know. It really goes by like that. I can’t say that I’m the hugest fan of UMO’s work overall. I actually made a bit of a point to myself to listen to their most recent record. I still haven’t and it’s been out for quite some time now. So, yeah. As I say, not the biggest fan. Or at least not the most committed of their listeners. But I do like ‘The Garden’ though. That’s a really nice song.

Out of the, I think, four UMO albums I’ve heard in full, I reckon Multi-Love is head-and-shoulders above the rest. And the album comes to a close with today’s featured track, ‘Puzzles’, a commentary about America’s racial issues and visa policies that sort of comes out of the blue. Up to that point, the album deals with frontman Ruban Nielson’s feelings on fame, various anxieties and love, all framed within the context of an polyamorous relationship he was indulging with two women. However, once you learn that the track is based on the experience of he and his wife having to leave the States because their tourist visas expired, it does make a lot more sense. The track does take a while to get going, starting with an ambient intro of a synthesizer repeating two chords amid the sound of what I think is something throwing stuff into a dumpster. Guitars don’t enter the frame until 56 seconds in, acoustic (bear in mind), playing the chord progression of the verses in a calming, slower manner before two strikes of an open hi-hat mark the entrance of the electric guitars, one of which sounds like it’s being strangled each time a chord rings from the fretboard.

Even from that first time I heard this track in 2017, I got the feeling that it was written to act as this sort of epic closer. It’s asking the “big” questions pertaining to America’s racial issues, which is all well and good. I mean, it’s not wrong to want to write about that sort of stuff. But it doesn’t go too deep into it, as the first verse is the same as the second and the choruses are repeated twice too. In fact, the singing part within this track probably take up the minority of its duration, as it’s bookended by the long intro and the two-and-a-half minute outro, which also fades out too. Sort of ends the album on this wandering note rather than a huge climactic finish, which I sometimes feel a bit let down by. But that feeling only really comes having listened to the album as a whole. Otherwise, I’m singing along to all of those guitar lines and notes that make up those instrumental passages, or moving my head to that skipping ascending guitar melody in the choruses among those overblown drums. Though I might have my own tiny gripes with it, I wish I had more hands so I could give it four thumbs-up.

#1078: They Might Be Giants – Put Your Hand Inside the Puppet Head

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Man, look at those fresh-faced Johns in that music video. I reckon I was about 12 years old when I saw the clip for TMBG’s ‘Put Your Hand Inside the Puppet Head’ for the first time and thus heard the song too. Would have been 2007, and YouTube was up and running at this point. Not the big deal it is today. Was a lot more humble and much more innocent back then. At 12, the Giants had been around in my life for probably three and a bit years at that point. And it was hard to find music videos by them online without really having to look for some websites. Now all of them were on this “new” site, and ‘Puppet Head’ was a well-liked song according to the band’s wiki. Became an instant hit in my book and another to add to that list of tunes I already knew that really made TMBG stand out compared to any other band/musician/artist I usually listened to.

I distinctly remember stopping and starting the video numerous times, just to keep replaying the image of the two Johns jumping in time to the track’s opening drum pattern. It’s quite hypnotizing in its own way. Plus, it’s quite the visual to start things off with. Once I realised that this was the duo’s first ever music video, it made sense that the first scene had to lure viewers in somehow. In fact there are many dance moves here (which were a signature in those early TMBG videos) that I kept on rewatching. Just made the two guys all the more endearing. But you want to know about the song, that’s why you’re here. Well, John Linnell originally wrote it – lyrics and music – but was unhappy with how his verses turned out. He gave it to bandmate John Flansburgh who “filled in all the blanks”, resulting in one of the best TMBG outcomes, a collaboration between the two band members in comparison to the usual where one or the other will write the entire song.

From what I can gather from the lyrics, I think it’s simply about a person who doesn’t like their job, wants more out of life. Maybe a little loving to help soothe the pain. And all of this could happen if someone would only put their hand inside the titular puppet head. The talk about zombies and this puppet head puts things into a bit of a surreal area, but I think that’s just a way of making the understanding a little harder to achieve. Well, I think they did that quite successfully. But like a lot of other TMBG songs, it’s a bunch of fun to sing along to. The track was released as the second song on the band’s first album from 1986, but with a different mix from that in the music video. The snare hits are drenched in reverb, someone suggested to make the song a little sharper in its key, and the tone overall is a little brighter. It does fit in alongside the other 18 tracks on that record. When I sing it out of the blue, my pitch usually goes to that of the video’s. But honestly, this is one of those rare occasions where I like two separate released mixes of a song at about the same level.